


Learning to Breathe

by Bus_Kids_Burgade (Inthemorninglight)



Series: I Won't Let Go [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Baby Fic, Cody AU, F/M, Found Family, Future Fic, Gen, Medical Procedures, Pregnancy, Women Supporting Women, a lot of team/family feelings, all the tagged friendships have a SIGNIFICANT role, background Huntingbird - Freeform, background Mackelean, background static quake, preterm labor, prominantly featuring platonic relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 17:17:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11994372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inthemorninglight/pseuds/Bus_Kids_Burgade
Summary: It isn't supposed to happen like this.“She’s too small.... She's not - ready.” Jemma struggles for breath.May’s face comes into view above her, and Jemma can feel her hands on either side of her. “The little ones fight the hardest.”...When Jemma goes into preterm labor at only twnety-eight weeks, it leaves both her and the baby fighting for their lives. Meanwhile Fitz, their son, and the rest of the team struggle to keep it together, unable to do much more than wait and pray.





	Learning to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set in the Cody verse, an AU where, instead of finding Will Daniels on Maveth, Jemma finds his orphaned son Cody, born and raised on a planet called death, and brings him back to Earth. 
> 
> You should be able to enjoy this fic without having read any of the others in the serries, but it may be more enjoyable if you take a look at I Won't Let Go and this post with some context/background info first.
> 
> HUGE HUGE thank you to Fitzsimmonsaf for being a tireless beta and cheerleader and basically single-handedly dragging this story out of me. If not for her efforts over several long months, this fic would never have seen the light of day.

Jemma presses one hand to the aching small of her back, the other splayed over her protuberant belly as she stands before the stove waiting for the kettle to boil.

“Oh, hush,” she chides as the baby resumes its assault on her bladder. “Haven’t you already given me enough trouble today, hm?”  

“Little bugger’s a handful, i’nt she?” Hunter smirks, juggling a bowl of cereal in one hand and a squirming Landon in the other. “Probably gonna be a brat just like her mum.”

Jemma snatches a spatula from the counter and lands a sound whap to Hunter’s shoulder as he edges past her, causing milk to slosh over the rim of his cereal bowl.

“See that, Ladybug? She can’t resist proving me right,” Hunter says to the toddler.

Landon points to the spilled milk, mouth popping open in a worried O.

“Don’t call my kids brats,” Jemma huffs, impatiently cranking the burner up to fullblast.

“D’you want me to ask Bob where her heating pads are?” Hunter asks as he kneels down to mop up the mess. “These two were wicked up towards the end, wherencha Ladybug? Reckon it’d help with your back or your ankles or whatever the kid’s flaring up today.”

“Everything,” Jemma groans. “It’s everything. The next three months cannot go quickly enough.” 

“You say that now,” Hunter says darkly. “Just wait till the banshee keeps you up three days straight.”

The kettle starts up a shrill whistle, and Jemma hurries to turn it off, grabbing the dish rag draped over the oven handle to pour herself a steaming mug of caffeine-free herbal detox tea.

“Did you want some, love?” She cranes her neck to see Cody where he’s hunched over the kitchen table, head buried in one of Laurie’s thick geology journals. He gives a barely perceptible shake of his head, not glancing up from the yellowing pages.

Hunter raises a questioning eyebrow at Jemma who sighs. She knows exactly what the matter is. Fitz left for a field mission yesterday morning. It’s a fairly standard investigation into a new 0-8-4, but Cody’s been having a hard time with either of them leaving base recently. Jemma is quite at a loss to explain the sudden spike in separation anxiety. He hasn’t worried about them being in the field like this in years. 

She grabs a second cup anyway and fills it with some of the sweet lemon tea he likes for some unfathomable reason (she can only blame his American genes), adding a healthy amount of milk and honey to it, too. A mug in each hand she carefully negotiates Hunter, Landon, and the counter to join Cody at the table. 

“Which one’s that?” she asks, trying to read the text of his book upside-down. 

It makes her woozy, though, so she stops. 

“Essays by Stephen Jay Gould,” Cody tells her, finally glancing up. There’s an apology on his face. He knows he’s being rude, but focusing on the reading stops his mind from spinning toward Fitz.

Jemma reaches out to tousle his hair affectionately. She knows Gould is his go-to.

“I’ve got to get back to the lab,” she says reluctantly after a few minutes of sipping her tea and watching him read. “Dad’s waiting on those compound assessments and there’re a million genetic sequences that apparently need my immediate attention.” She rolls her eyes - new lab techs.

Cody marks his page with a napkin and gets up to join her, offering an arm to help her out of her chair. He’s been following her around like a ghost all day. Jemma groans loudly as she stands, making a face and rubbing her back again. Cody’s face pinches worriedly, and Hunter frowns at her from the island where he’s sharing his cereal with Landon.

“You could take a break,” Hunter suggests bravely.

“Oh, honestly, I’m creating a human being as we speak. Can’t I complain without being rushed to the fainting couch?” She kisses Cody’s forehead, which, thanks to his latest growth spurt, is conveniently at chin height. “I’m perfectly fine, so both of you can quit hovering.”

Truth be told the back ache is particularly bad today, and it’s making her a bit nauseous. But having spent most of her life in a male-dominated field fighting tooth and nail to prove to her colleagues that her gender has no baring on her ability to excel at her job, she loathes the idea of shucking responsibilities for a little pregnancy discomfort.

“Come on, Monkey, you can help me run some particle analysis.”

...

“You know it almost sounds like the effects of gamma radiation. Have you consulted Dr. Banner?”

“Jemma, I can’t just call up the Hulk every time I have a question about gamma radiation,” Fitz splutters indignantly over the choppy FaceTime connection. “It’s, like, speciesist or something, I’m pretty sure.”

“Well, you are wearing hazmat suits, aren’t you?”

“Of course we’re - we do know how to follow safety protocol.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Fitz rolls his eyes, and somewhere off-screen she hears Daisy shout something about maternal hormones.

“That is sexist,” Jemma says primly, raising her voice for Daisy. “My concerns are no less valid just because I happen to be performing a nine-month miracle at the moment.”

“Speaking of said miracle, how is she?” asks Fitz.

“Taking out her cabin fever on my insides,” Jemma groans. “I swear today she’s got it in for every part of me.”

Fitz winces in sympathy, but he knows better by now than to pursue the topic with suggestions of taking it easy.

“How about the other miracle?” he asks instead, and this time a shadow of concern flits over her face.

“He’s been on my heels all day,” she sighs. “Which of course _I_ don’t mind, but...”

“I know, he waited outside the briefing room for me for two hours when you were with Dr. Weaver last month,” Fitz says. “Have you tried asking him about it?”

She worries her bottom lip between her teeth. “I don’t want him to feel weird and stop doing it if it makes him feel better.”

“Has anything happened lately? I can’t think why it’s suddenly started up.”

Jemma shakes her head and glances in the vague direction of his room. “I should go check on him. I’ll send you some of the research we did on gamma radiation and accelerated protein production.”  

“I’ve told you I love you lately, right?”

Jemma rolls her eyes. “Good night, Fitz. Love you too.”

“Yeah, good night. Tell the monkey I love him, too, and I’ll be back soon.”

The connection cuts out, and Jemma sets her laptop aside and readies herself for the arduous act standing up has become recently.

It feels like a long walk, the few steps down the hallway to his room.

“Cody?” she asks, knocking softly on his door.

There’s no answer, and when she glances down there’s no light seeping out from under his door either. It’s past nine, so it wouldn’t be too strange if he were already asleep, but she pushes the door open quietly anyway, just to check.

The bed’s empty, still neatly made. Had she walked right past him in the living room? (She won’t admit it to anyone else, but she’s started doing a lot of spacey things like that the further into this pregnancy she gets.)

“Monkey, are you still up?” she calls, wandering back in the direction of their living quarters, but he’s not on the couch or at the table either, and the bathroom door is open. It doesn’t look like he’s in their quarters at all.

He’s allowed to wander the base alone, and in fact it’s not all that strange, but disappearing this late at night without even checking in, especially when he’s barely left her side all day... She tries not to jump to conclusions or worry unnecessarily as she jams her sneakers on and pulls a sweater over her pajama top. He’s probably in the lab pouring over the new Asgardian fossils or bugging May somewhere.

But the lab is empty aside from a few lab techs still working on the genetic sequencing project. May is sparring with Bobbi in the gym, and neither one of them have seen him.

“We’ll help you look,” Bobbi says, rolling nimbly up from the floor, but Jemma shakes her head.

“He’s probably in the kitchen hunting for sweets or something. I’ve only just started looking.”

“Are you okay?” Bobbi asks, eyes narrowing suspiciously as Jemma’s face tightens briefly in a wince.

Her backache has spread to her side, and she cannot wait to finally lie down, but she’s got to find Cody first. Something is clearly wrong, and she needs to figure out what it is.

“We can find the kid, you go sit down,” May orders, but again Jemma shakes her head.

She’s worried something’s triggered him. It hasn’t happened in a while, but it still does happen, to her too, and the way he’s been acting lately... If he’s caught in the middle of a panic attack somewhere or is on the verge of one, she needs to be the one to find him. May or Bobbi might accidentally set him off.

But he’s not in the kitchen, nor the rec room. She even calls up to the Avengers’ floors but he’s not up there either. She’s walked the entire length of their part of the base by now, and panic is starting to set in, not helped by the pain in her abdomen that’s only growing more intense. She stops and braces herself with a hand on the wall, blowing out a long breath. Braxton Hicks contractions. She’s had them before, and she waits for this one to pass before continuing down the hallway.

She does finally find him curled up in the cockpit of a quinjet, and every muscle in her body goes lax with relief. Especially when the gaze he turns on her as she pushes the door open is clear and unclouded by fear.

“Cody Austin Daniels, I have been all over this base looking for you,” she says, sharply in the wake of her anxiety.

Guilt fills his face. “Sorry. I thought you were asleep, and I didn’t want to bug you.”

“Bug me, please, every time. Or at least leave me a note.”

She eyes the pilot’s chair longingly, but Cody’s on the floor, and this conversation is one she wants to be close to him for. She eases herself down, using the wall for support, and scrutinizes him more critically. He’s hugging his knees, chin on top of folded arms. The anthology of Gould essays is abandoned at his side.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

He rolls his head to look sideways at her. “About what?”

“Well, something’s clearly on your mind.”

He grimaces, scrubs a hand over his face. “It’s not a big deal.”

She nods, stretches a leg out in front of her to ease the ache in her knees. “Dad says to tell you he loves you and will be home soon. Looks like things are going well.”

“Good.”

“Are you worried about him?” she asks, watching him covertly from the corner of her eyes.

Cody hitches a shoulder. “I know he’s alright.”

“That is not an answer to my question,” she points out. When he doesn’t go on, she reaches over to card her fingers through his hair. “What’s going on, love?”

“I don’t know… it’s stupid,” he mumbles.

“I’m sure it isn’t.”

She holds her breath as another sharp pain radiates through her stomach and lower back. This one is more intense than its predecessors, but she puts that observation aside for now.

“I just don’t like it when I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he says finally, muffled into his folded arms.

“I know,” Jemma says softly after a moment. “Come here.” She tugs until he scoots close enough for her to put an arm around him. “Dad’s going to be alright. Daisy, Mack, Elena, and Coulson are with him, and he’s great at his job.”

“I _know_ , but -” he breaks off, turning to bury his face in her shoulder.

Jemma rests her chin on the top of his head and rubs circles between his shoulderblades. “You know, not every surprise is bad,” she says. “If I’d known a giant rock was going to swallow me, I would’ve been terrified, but it gave me one of the best things in my life.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Cody groans, but she can feel him smiling.

“Well it’s true -”

But she cuts herself off with an involuntary gasp. Another shock of pain jolts her, even stronger than before.

Cody jerks upright at once. “What’s wrong?”

She pushes a smile onto her face, hoping it doesn’t look pained. “Nothing’s _wrong_. Your sister’s just asking for some attention, that’s all. Are you ready to go back?”

He nods, still eyeing her suspiciously.

“I’m going to need a hand up,” she prompts.

He pulls one of her arms over his shoulders, and between him and the wall she grits her teeth and clambers to her feet.

And something hot starts to trickle down her thigh.

“Mom?”

Jemma takes a deep breath through her nose and swallows. Swallows the panic that has spiked in her chest. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything, she tells herself. And Cody’s already anxious enough tonight. She’ll walk back to the bunk with him, and once he’s gone to bed she’ll have Lincoln take a look at her. The plan calms her.  

She smiles again to ease his worried expression. “Shall we?”

But she only manages to make it to the loading ramp. Pain is rolling over her like ocean waves, and whatever is running down her leg, it’s coming thicker and faster. Red spots are dancing in her vision, and she has to reach out for the wall to keep her feet.

Cody stops when she does, and his grip tightens on her wrist. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“I’m... just a little dizzy,” she says faintly, leaning against the wall and sliding back down to the floor.

Cody drops down beside her. “I should get someone, right? Lincoln or Bobbi?" 

Jemma forces her gaze to focus on his nervous expression, pushes herself up straighter, breathes through another contraction. “I think I’ll be alright in a minute, love. It’s just been - a long day.”

She fishes her phone out of her pocket and, as casually as she can, scrolls to Lincoln’s name.

_I think I’m going into early labor on a quinjet._

The message shoots off into the ether with a cheerful _whoosh_ sound.

They sit in silence, Jemma waiting tensely for a response, Cody watching her closely.

“Why don’t you tell me what you were reading about,” she says after a moment. She needs the distraction, both from the pain and the waiting, and he needs the distraction from her.

“Just a couple essays I’ve read before,” he says, shifting to lean against the wall beside her but keeping his hand on her forearm.

“Which ones?”

“The one about evolution and how it doesn’t know where it’s going.”

“That’s a good one,” she says absently, checking her phone again.

Still no response. He might be asleep already. She copies the message and sends it to Bobbi too, adding _Cody’s with me. Don’t scare him_.

She closes her eyes and listens to him talk about evolution. She knows he’s still watching her, talking because she asked him to, not because he’s distracted. Another surge of pain and this time she can’t stop the small yelp.

Cody’s hand finds hers. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he insists, fear edging into his expression. And when she says nothing, eyes closed and face screwed up, he jostles her arm a little. “ _Mom_.”

Jemma can feel her pajama pants starting to soak through. Painfully, she opens her eyes and checks her phone. Still no response. She takes a deep breath.

“Cody, I need you to do something for me.”

“What?” he says at once.

“I need you to go find Lincoln or Bobbi or May or anyone,” she licks her lips, “and tell them I might be going into labor.”

“But - but it’s too early,” Cody says numbly. “Gestation takes forty weeks, and you’re only at twenty-eight-and-a-half.”

“It might not be labor, it might just be false labor,” she tries to assure them both.

“But what if it isn’t?”

“Then Lincoln will give me something to stop it,” she says very calmly. “Don’t be scared, Monkey. There’s nothing to be scared about.”

She smiles and cups his cheek in reassurance.

“Will you be okay alone?”

“I’ll be fine, love. Go on.”

He’s up and darting for the hangar doors in a second. Alone in the semi-darkness, Jemma lets a choked sob fall from her lips, pain swelling again.

“It’s going to be alright,” she whispers, to herself or the baby she’s not sure.

The darkness is big and pressing, and now that she’s alone the reality of the situation sharpens dramatically. She is starting to feel light-headed. The base and everyone in it feel like an island drifting further and further away.

She checks her phone again. It is still frighteningly devoid of messages, but on her lock screen she sees Fitz, Cody squashed against his side in a one-armed hug, both of them with that squinty smile that’s just to humor her.

Their last conversation echoes in her mind, fuzzy already. Had she said she loved him? Had she told him everything would be alright? Her fingers have already pulled up his number, already hit call before she realizes what she’s doing. As another wrenching pain knifes through her abdomen and she tries to pretend she doesn’t know down to the excruciatingly microscopic detail what’s happening inside of her, she presses the phone to her ear and holds onto the rings like a lifeline in the dark.

He answers on the third one, distracted, mind still on gamma radiation and the problem before him. She knows exactly what expression is on his face.

“Hey, Jemma, what’s up?”

There’s a silence as all the fear spiraling around her gets clogged in her throat.

“Simmons? Jemma, are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here,” she says, the words suddenly getting unstuck, coming as smooth as she can make them.

“What’s going on?”

“I couldn’t remember if I said that I loved you.”

He breathes a laugh on the other end, still focusing, she’s sure, on whatever he’s doing.

“If you didn’t, I’m fairly certain it was implied.”

“I just wanted to make sure. I love you, Fitz.”

“I love you, too.”

There’s some more silence. She can hear the shuffling of tools and the murmuring of the rest of the team who knows how many hundreds of miles away.

“Jemma, is something going on? Is everything okay?” he asks after a minute of this.

“Yes.” It’s an ambiguous response. “I’ve got to go now, but I just wanted to make sure I’d said it. I love you.”

“Okay, well, good night -” on the Zephyr, Fitz hears the click of the line cutting off before he’s even finished his sentence.

He pulls his phone away from his ear to squint at the screen, confirming that his wife had indeed just hung up on him. Across the holotable, Daisy raises her eyebrows.

“Well, that was odd,” he mutters.

He shrugs at Daisy, shakes his head, pockets his phone. It is hardly the oddest conversation they’ve ever had, though, so he doesn’t think on it too much more.

...

The base has never been more deserted. The lab, the lounge, the gym, all empty. Cody bangs on Lincoln’s door for at least five minutes, but no one answers. Half of the team is off-base and everyone else seems to have disappeared. Even the small medical staff is not in the med bay.

Cody is beginning to seriously lose it by the time he skids back into the residential wing and starts hammering on Bobbi and Hunter’s door. This time, to his immense relief, it flies open almost at once, and Hunter is shushing him frantically.

“I just got the twin terrors to sleep, and if you wake ‘em up, mate -”

“Where’s Bobbi?” Cody demands, and there is something wild in his voice that gets Hunter’s immediate focus.

“I dunno, still working I guess. What’s wrong?” 

“I need - I need -”

But he can’t string the words together. How long has she been alone now?

“Easy, bud,” Hunter says, putting firm, grounding hands on Cody’s shoulders. “Just take a breath, alright?”

Cody sucks in a great, gasping breath. He wishes Bobbi were here. He could sign this much faster.

“I need _help_ ,” he forces out.

“Okay, what can I do?” Hunter asks.

But they don’t have time for him to scrape the words together. Jemma doesn’t have time.

He grabs Hunter’s wrist and starts to drag him down the hall, but Hunter grabs the door frame.

“Whoa, whoa, sorry, champ, but I’ve got two twenty pound scream machines I can’t leave alone, even if they are asleep. Why don’t you come in and we’ll talk, yeah?”

A scream of panic and frustration is building in Cody’s chest by now.

That’s when May’s door opens down the hall.

“What the hell is going on?” she asks, then she sees Cody. “Your mom’s looking for you.”

That seems to unstick something.

“She needs a doctor,” he blurts, dropping Hunter’s wrist and darting to May’s door instead. “She needs help. Something’s wrong.”

“Where is she?” May asks, stepping out into the hallway and yanking her door shut.

“She’s in the hangar, on a quinjet.” His voice snaps in half.

May sets off at a half-run and Cody scrambles to keep up with her.

“I’m coming!” Hunter calls after them. “I’m getting someone for the twins, and I’m coming!”

They’re already around the corner.

Even at a dead run, it seems to take forever to wind their way across the base to the hangar. Hunter catches up with them just as they burst through the airlock doors. The lights are on and Cody blinks in confusion before he hears the commotion coming from near the quinjet.

 _Lincoln and Bobbi_.

May only just catches Cody around the waist before he barrels through the knot of medics and nurses that have swarmed the loading ramp in his absence.

“Mom!” he shouts, fighting against May’s grip, trying to catch a glimpse of her through the small crowd.

Bobbi’s halo of golden hair stands out as she looks up. ‘Keep him back’ she mouths to Hunter, who’s gone completely ashen.

“Cody - Cody!” May forces him around so he cannot see the chaos. “I’m going to find out what’s going on, okay? Stay with Hunter - stay.”

Hunter pulls Cody against his chest, trying to keep the kid’s face buried in his shirt, but Cody writhes around until he can watch May plunge into the sea of scrubs.

It’s worse than she’d let herself imagine. Jemma is whiter than the bleached labcoat Bobbi has hastily thrown on over her workout clothes. There are smears of scarlet on her cheek, on Bobbi’s and Lincoln’s gloves, and her eyes are only half-open, unfocused.

“What happened?” May demands, kneeling at Jemma’s shoulder.

“Preterm labor,” Lincoln slides out through gritted teeth. He’s taping an IV to the crook of Jemma’s arm.

“Why? How?”

“We don’t know,” is all Bobbi says. She’s taking Jemma’s pulse with one hand, the other goes to smoothe the hair back from Jemma’s forehead. “She’s hypertensive,” she mutters to Lincoln.

“Baby’s heart rate is low,” he reports, looping his stethoscope back around his neck. “We’ve gotta move her - everyone ready?” he tosses over his shoulder.

There’s a chorus of affirmation as the other medics move into position. As they maneuver Jemma as gently as possible, getting ready to lift her, her wandering eyes catch on May’s face. May has never seen the kind of terror Jemma fixes on her now.

“It’s alright,” she whispers, out of reflex or habit or just to say anything to ease that fear. She cups the side of Jemma’s head, fingers brushing her cheek. “It’s going to be alright.”

“Alright, Jemma, we’re going to lift you up now and get you a gurney,” Lincoln says, calm, reassuring. He has one of her bloodstained hands pressed between his own. “It’s going to hurt, but we’re going to be as careful as we can be, okay? We’re going to get you to the medbay and do everything we can for you and the baby. I promise.”

“Hang tight, girlie,” Bobbi murmurs.

“Okay, one - two - three -”

Bobbi and Lincoln and the team of medics lift Jemma in one practiced movement - and she lets out a screech of pain so sharp and anguished it lodges itself like a knife at the base of May’s skull.

“I’m sorry,” Lincoln almost whimpers as they set her down on the gurney and pry another pained cry from her throat. “I’m so sorry, Jemma.”

May sees him blink rapidly as he locks the bed rails in place.

The swarm moves in swift unison after that, sweeping May along with them. In seconds, the loading ramp is empty except for Cody and Hunter and a wide, dark stain of scarlet where Jemma had been.

**…**

Jemma swims up through a cloud of intense light, following the beeping of a heart monitor like a line towing her home.

“...partially torn, not completely, but…”

There is a mask over her face and it sticks uncomfortably to her skin. She tries to pull it off, but a hand stops her.

“You’re okay, Jemma.”

“The…” _The baby_.

“...even if the contractions stop...”

“H-h…” _Help her._

“We’ve got to do a cesarian -”

“No.”

Jemma forces her eyes to focus, yanks the mask away from her mouth. They’re all looking at her, Lincoln and Bobbi and the other doctors. She doesn’t know their names anymore. It’s been so long since she’s worked in the medbay, now that they have Lincoln.

“Jemma -” Lincoln starts.

“She’s too small.”

“The placenta tore,” Bobbi says, and the gentleness of her words is at odds with the way they rip through Jemma’s chest.

“You can fix it,” Jemma insists. _You have to fix it_.

“I’m not a fetal surgeon,” Lincoln tells her and it’s an apology. He looks like he’d do his entire medical career over again to be the doctor she needs right now if he could. “We don’t have time to get a specialist here - she’s not getting enough oxygen.”

“She’s not - _ready_.”

Jemma’s scrambling for air and Bobbi presses the mask back in place.

Lincoln squeezes her fingers and she realizes he hasn’t let go of her hand since they found her on the loading ramp. “We can help her out here. We can’t help her in there. If we wait much longer we’re risking brain damage. We’re risking _your_ life.”

She wants to say that doesn’t matter, her life. She wants to reel off the list of risk factors facing babies born at twenty-eight weeks. All she can say, though, is, “She’s too small.”

May’s face comes into view above her, and Jemma can feel her hands on either side of her. “The little ones fight the hardest.”

“It’s not supposed to be this way,” she gasps, pulling the mask away again. “Fitz isn’t… he’s…”

Bobbi’s hand covers hers, pushing the mask down again and holding it there firmly. “I’m going to call him. He’ll be here as soon as he can.”

Her thumb brushes a circle over the back of Jemma’s hand.  

They’ve already started to move her towards an operating room.

_No, this can’t…._

May slides out of view and Jemma panics, grabbing frantically for her although she can’t reach very far.

May’s hand catches her own and she’s back in her sights. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“ _Cody_ ,” Jemma breathes into the thick plastic of the mask.

“I’ll make sure he’s alright,” Bobbi promises. “I’m going to call Fitz and make sure Cody’s alright and then I’ll be right back.”

Bobbi brushes Jemma’s cheek before she disappears. May’s other hand squeezes her shoulder. They’re in the harsh blue of the operating room now.

It’s happening, it’s happening.

…

Cody and Hunter are sitting directly opposite the medbay doors and fly up the second Bobbi emerges.

“Is she okay?”

“What the bloody hell is happening?”

As if he can’t stop them, Cody’s hands echo the question, asking it again and again: _is she okay? Is she okay?_

Bobbi doesn’t know what to say. How to explain.

“They’re doing a C-section,” is what she finally settles on. “They just took her back.”

“Fuck,” Hunter says softly and turns away.

Cody’s shaking his head. “Don’t they know she’s only twenty-eight-and-a-half weeks? They can’t - they can’t do that -”

He steps toward the door as if he plans on marching into the operating room himself, but Bobbi catches him gently around the waist.

“They know what they’re doing.”

It’s the best promise she can make.

She pulls him against her side in a one-armed hug. He lets his weight fall against her but his eyes don’t leave the closed medbay doors.

Wordlessly, she herds them both toward the kitchen. She flicks the coffee pot on and puts a pan of milk on the stove for Cody, dumping in a packet of powdered hot chocolate mix. She knows she’s stalling, knows every minute she delays calling the Zephyr is another minute it will take the team to get here, but now that she’s away from the adrenaline of the med bay, the inside of her head feels too scrambled and fuzzy to string a sentence together.

And she’s loth to leave them, with Cody trailing her like a kid lost at a carnival and Hunter looking like he’s on another planet.

But someone has to make that call.

Out in the hallway, far enough away from the kitchen that she won’t be overheard, Bobbi stares at her phone. Her fingers tingle as she keys in the number, and she gives herself one minute, phone pressed to her collarbone and holding her breath, to collect herself before hitting dial.

...

“Would you - quit - touching things?” Fitz snatches another instrument out of Daisy’s hands and lays it delicately back in its case.

“How long before we know if we can start blowing stuff up?” she asks impatiently.

“I could speed it up for you,” Elena offers, eyeing the centrifuge over the back of the couch.

“No.” Fitz steps protectively in front of his machine. “Science takes time - precision - you can’t just - barbaric -” he trails off in scandalized mutters, shaking his head at the both of them, and Daisy and Elena turn away to muffle their laughter.

“Fitz?”  

Coulson’s voice draws everyone’s attention. He steps out of his makeshift office, an ominous crease in his brow.

“You heard from the ground team, didn’t you?” Fitz guesses. “It’s collapsing already, isn’t it? Have they tried the vibranium braces? We just need an hour or so -”

“It’s not the ground team,” Coulson cuts him off. He’s holding his phone and he offers it to Fitz. “Bobbi needs to talk to you.”

“Okay.” He reaches for the phone automatically, trying to decipher Coulson’s expression. “Hey, what’s up?”  

He hears Bobbi take a deep breath. “I have to tell you something, and I need you to try not to freak out, okay?”

He laughs a little nervously. “Okay…”

“Something happened with Jemma and the baby…”

She says more, but Fitz doesn’t hear much of it over the ringing in his ears. He doesn’t realize the phone’s slipped through his numb fingers until he sees Daisy picking it up. She nods and says “okay,” and, “how long?” and, “We’re on our way,” and then she hangs up and looks at him.

“What - what - “

Coulson guides him gently down into a chair.

“What happened?” Mack asks for him.

Daisy blinks and clears her throat. “We need to get back to base. Now.”

And then she tells them why.  

…

“Look at me,” May says. Her hands are on either side of Jemma’s face and she speaks only loud enough for Jemma to hear. “Just at me.”

“But I want to see,” Jemma complains, trying feebly to pick her head up. There’s a sheet in her way and she’s trying to see around it. “It’s my baby and my emergency surgery, I should be allowed to see.”

But even in scrubs and a hair net, May’s expression brooks no arguments. Jemma lies still, looking up at her instead and trying to block out all the blue. Her nightmares are always blue. Blue sky, blue water, blue sand. Blue scrubs, blue blankets, blue sheets.   

“Do they have her yet?” she asks.

May takes her eyes away from Jemma’s to check.

“No, not yet.”

“What’s happening?”

“She wants to know what’s happening,” May says to the doctors.

There are voices but Jemma can barely hear them. She picks out Lincoln but his words are lost in the ocean roar in her ears.

There’s a clatter that might be the door and then Bobbi’s hovering in her line of sight too, a mask and hairnet hiding most of her face. “Hey, girlie, how’re you doing?”

“Tell me what’s happening,” Jemma orders. “May doesn’t know.”

Bobbi disappears for a second then is back. “They just made the incision in the uterine wall. She’s gonna be here really soon.”

“I want to see her.” Jemma fights to keep her eyes open but it’s getting hard. “Tell me when she’s here,” she says, letting them fall closed for just a moment.

“Hey, eyes on me, remember?” May taps her cheek lightly. “Just keep looking at me, Simmons.”

Bobbi says something but it’s not to them.

“It’s cold in here,” Jemma mumbles.

“Hang another unit of A positive.” This is Lincoln. His face appears beside May’s. He tries to look reassuring but there’s a tense crease between his eyes. “Bobbi’s getting you a blanket. You’re doing really good, Simmons.”

“I’m not doing anything,” she objects, but he’s already disappeared again.  

She senses a dim flurry of activity out of her line of sight.

“What’s happening?”

May doesn’t answer. She’s looking at something else. Bobbi’s looking at something else. It takes a great effort, but Jemma lifts her head, trying to see through the throng of doctors.

“Is she here? Is she okay?”

No one answers. There’s no sound of a baby crying, but her lungs are probably too weak anyway. But then one of the nurses moves and Jemma can see something very small and purple and already wrapped up in plastic tubes.

She’s here, she’s here.

“Is she breathing?”

May is smoothing her hair and telling _Jemma_ to breathe, but she can’t because now they’re wheeling the baby away.

“No, I need to see her!” she thinks she shouts it but May and Bobbi seem to be the only ones who hear. Bobbi is holding her hand again. “I need to stay with her… She needs me. I need to stay with her.”

There are more voices, and she can’t see the baby anymore.

“I’ll go with her,” Bobbi promises, kneeling down so her face is all Jemma can see. “I’ll stay right by her side for you, okay?”

She kisses Jemma’s forehead and then it’s just May she can see and then that fades too.

…

The plane must be going over a thousand miles an hour, but it’s not fast enough. Pacing at least gives Fitz the illusion that he’s doing something. The rest of the team is sitting on the floor, ignoring the perfectly good couches and chairs as if their comfort is an insult.

“We’ll be there in less than an hour,” Daisy reminds him.

Less than an hour feels like an eternity to both of them.

Coulson’s door opens again and everyone’s eyes snap in his direction. Fitz freezes mid step. He thinks his entire body might have turned to stone, and Daisy reaches up to grip his fingers.

“Bobbi says the baby’s here and she’s hanging in there,” Coulson tells them.

“Th-that’s it? That’s - what about her lungs? And - and -” There are too many questions and Fitz doesn’t even know what the right ones to ask look like. Jemma is the one who knows these things.

“They’ll give you a rundown when we land,” Coulson assures him. “Bobbi didn’t even try to explain the medical jargon to me. She’s small, and it was… a complicated delivery, but she’s holding on.”

Fitz swallows and gulps down a breath, remembering suddenly that breathing is something he has to do.

“And Jemma?” Mack asks, and that petrified feeling is back.

“Still in surgery,” is all Coulson says.

Daisy squeezes his hand and pulls him down beside her. “We’ll be there soon.”

“Yeah.... yeah.”

Elena is sitting across from him. One hand is folded into Mack’s, the other is worrying the cross around her neck.

“I know…” she starts, leaning forward, “that we all have different faiths. But would you want to pray? Together? I think it could help.”

Fitz considers this. He has not stopped to pray in a very long time. It is not something, even in times of crisis, he thinks to do. There is usually something else, something more tangible, for him to throw his energy toward. But here, trapped on a plane, so far away from them…

He reaches for Elena’s hand.

Even Coulson joins them, lowering himself to the floor between Daisy and Mack. They make a loose circle, their heads all bowed.   

“Does she have a name yet?” Elena asks.

“Margaret,” he says before he can even think. They hadn’t decided, not officially. He still has a list of names to suggest in the back of his notebook. “Her name’s Margaret,” and he can’t help but smile around the name even as his throat tightens painfully. “Jemma - wants to call her Peggy.”

…

The human body is an amazing thing. An unequivocally incredible entity. Lincoln has always been mesmerized by it, drawn to studying its every minute, miraculous process. Humans have invented flight, launched themselves into space and the depths of the ocean, built machines able to do untold numbers of impressive feats. But they have yet to come close to the genius of their own anatomy. Yet to come close to even understanding it.

The scrub sink runs pink with blood that somehow got under the seal of his gloves. Soaked through the fabric of his gown. He can still feel it flooding fast and warm over his hands, pooling like oceans at his feet, and tries viciously to scrub the feeling away.

The shrill whine of the heart monitor still echoes in his ears.  

Anyone who thinks they can slice into that tapestry of veins, vessels, and arteries and simply… interfere... is a cocky bastard.

...      

“I have to tell you something.”

Hunter isn’t expecting Cody’s voice. The kid’s hardly said two words since Bobbi went back to the medbay. His hot chocolate sits cold and untouched on the counter in front of him.

“Alright,” Hunter says, swiveling on his stool to look at him properly. “What’s up?”

Cody’s sucking on his bottom lip, looking for all the world like the guiltiest person to ever open their mouth. Hunter tenses for whatever he’s going to say, sure he isn’t the best person to hear it, but right now he’s the only one.

“I wasn’t worried about Dad,” Cody mumbles. “When Mom went looking for me, I wasn’t - I was thinking - how I didn’t really want them to have a baby.”

If Hunter was expecting anything, it wasn’t this.

“But - you’re so excited about it,” he says as though Cody just needs to be reminded. “You’ve got a t-shirt and everything.”

Cody presses his palms into his eyes. “That was before.”

He doesn’t elaborate so Hunter scoots a little closer. “Before what? Hey, mate, it’s alright if you weren’t so excited about sharing your mum and dad. That’s not a big deal.”

Cody just shakes his head and presses the heels of his hands harder against his eyes.

“You’re gonna put your eyes out doing that,” Hunter puts an arm around his shoulders and pulls Cody’s hands away from his face.

“I was thinking -” Cody says, his voice unsteady and tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “I was thinking -” his hands move but Hunter doesn’t know what they’re saying. “I was thinking - I didn’t want them to have a baby - because they might love it more than me - I was thinking I didn’t want them to have a baby - and then this happened.”

...

It’s like a dream, Daisy thinks, where everything is moving too slowly. It takes a hundred years for them to land, a millennium for the loading ramp to lower. May is waiting for them, expression inscrutable. She touches Fitz’s shoulder gently though when they flock around her, a gesture reserved for extreme situations.

“Lincoln will explain,” she says to the panic in their faces. “They’re in C6.”

Daisy and Fitz take off at a dead sprint.

Daisy has sprinted miles. She practices mixed martial arts and barely breaks a sweat. But when they finally skid around the last corner and come to the doorway marked C6 in the base’s medbay, she can’t breathe.

Lincoln must see them through the half-closed blinds because he meets them at the door, bars their entrance.

“Is she okay?” Fitz gasps.

“ _Lincoln_ ,” Daisy says when he doesn’t answer immediately.

He has his doctor face on, the one that’s smooth and clinical.

“Jemma’s stable,” he says. “We’re monitoring her closely, but her vitals have been strong since she came out of surgery, which is a good sign.”

“Sign - sign of what?” Fitz’s hands are behind his head and he rocks from foot to foot. “She’s okay, right? She’s going to be okay? It was just a c-section. People - people have those all the time.”

“Simmons’s case was a little more complicated,” Lincoln tells them. He sounds like he hardly knows her and it’s distracting. “Her placenta tore before we were able to get to her, and there was significant bleeding during the surgery as well.”

Lincoln looks down, licks his lips, and for the first time his doctor face slips.

“She lost a lot of blood. We were able to replace it and stop the bleeding, she stabilized, but….” His eyes drop to the floor for a beat before he pushes onward. “Her heart stopped during surgery. Once we stopped the bleeding, we resuscitated her, and her BP, her rhythm, it’s been good.”

“So she’s okay?” Daisy asks. “She’s going to be okay?”

Lincoln takes a beat to answer, and she wonders, in the space of that beat, why, but then he nods. “Yes. Yeah, she’s okay now. She’s going to be okay.”

Fitz lets out a long breath. He looks like he could melt into a puddle in the middle of the hallway.

Daisy smacks Lincoln’s shoulder. “Next time, lead with that,” she says and then hugs him with all her might.

“She’s still intubated,” Lincoln says. “But you can see her.”

He steps aside, finally allowing them access to the small room.

“Jemma,” Fitz murmurs, and he moves forward like a sleepwalker.

He kneels next to her bed, gently takes her hand. Daisy follows, and everything about this still feels like a dream.

Hospital beds make people look smaller. Vulnerable and fragile. Daisy knows this, has seen enough of her friends here, been here herself enough times, to know the effect well. But she’s still not entirely prepared for the sight. Jemma’s swallowed by the bed, pale and still with a tube blosoming from her mouth and it’s incredible to Daisy that only a couple hours ago she was yelling at her about feminism through the facetime connection.

“And the baby?” Fitz asks, glancing back at Lincoln in the doorway. His grip tightens on Jemma’s hand.

“She’s a real fighter,” Lincoln says.

Fitz looks at Daisy across the hospital bed.

“I’ll stay here,” she says before he can even ask. She drops into a chair and takes Jemma’s other hand. “I’ve got our girl. You go meet your kid.”

He nods his gratitude. “I’m just… I’ll just be down the hall,” he whispers to Jemma and kisses her knuckles before jumping up to follow Lincoln.

It’s a long walk.

“We don’t exactly have a NICU,” Lincoln explains as they round another corner. “As soon as we’re sure she can handle it, we’ll need to move her to Buffalo.”

“Okay,” Fitz says.

“We’ve already got a couple specialists coming out. They’ll be able to go over the risk factors with you in more detail, suggest treatment plans.”

“Okay.”

“She looks… there’re a lot of machines and wires. It can look kind of scary, but they’re helping her breathe, keeping her warm, getting medicine and nutrition into her. And obviously you know that, but it’s just… something we say to prepare you.”

“Okay.”

They’ve stopped now, outside another door.

“Are you ready?” Lincoln asks.

Fitz has no answer for him. How do you know if you’re ready for something like this? He never imagined it happening this way. He never imagined he’d have to do it alone.

Lincoln claps him on the shoulder and opens the door.

There’s a small knot of medical personnel moving around the room and Bobbi’s there, standing sentry beside the incubator. They part, though, like the red sea when they see Fitz, and all of a sudden there she is.

There she is.

   


**Author's Note:**

> Quick note about updates: Multi-chaps are not my home terf and I wanted to have the whole story written before I started posting, but for reasons that didn't happen. There may be long gaps between updates, but if you stick with me, your patience will be rewarded! Feel free to bug me on tumblr (@buskidsburgade) if you want to chat about anything inbetween chapters.


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